Yesterday, members of the House of Representatives hosted a ground-breaking public discussion on how to give the public better access to congressional information. Around 300 developers, policy wonks, hill staffers, and others crowded into the Capitol Visitor Center to discuss how to use technology to make the legislative branch more open, transparent, and accessible. The event was sponsored by Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer.

Matt Lira, the Director of New Media for Rep. Cantor, opened the conference by hailing it as "our television moment," hearkening back to when House proceedings were first televised so they could be watched by the American people. Steve Dwyer, Rep. Hoyer's Director of Online Community and Technology, expressed his hopes that the day's conversation posed "a new model for collaboration between Congressional staff, advocacy groups, and private companies, where we can come together and meet face-to-face over common goals." We could not agree more. Open government is the common ground shared by leaders in both political parties, and we applaud them for their herculean effort to bring people together to work on these issues.

A lot of important information about the ongoing work of the House was publicly revealed at the conference during the first hour, but equally as important, the remaining three hours had attendees break into smaller groups to tackle persistent problems, resulting in incredibly important conversations between staff, technologists, and advocates that rarely occur, and never before on this scale. Intrepid reporter Alex Howard has already published video and photographs from the presentations, and Rep. Cantor posted a short video.

One of the most edifying presentations was made by Reynold Schweickart, the technology guru for the Committee on House Administration, regarding ongoing House efforts to open itself up. Here are the highlights:

• Next week the Committee on House Administration will likely hold a hearing to consider and adopt legislative data standards.

• Along a similar line, the committee is working on improving/implementing legislative drafting in XML, including how to make the data more accessible internally and to outside users. (We can only hope that this includes discussion of bulk access to this information.)

• There are plans to  start publishing floor and committee documents in a machine readable format at permanent URLs. In addition, there will soon be naming conventions for documents that the House rules require to be made publicly available, with the goal of having permanent URLs by 2013.

• GPO, which has begun publishing historic statutes at large online, will start publishing the historic slip laws as individual files, so that you can easily see (and link to) legislation as it was enacted by Congress. (I have a lot more to say about this here.)

• A meeting was held with representatives from all the offices that are involved in creating and disseminating legislative data. If a true collaboration arises, what this could mean is the creation and use of data standards to describe legislation (and its constituent parts) from when it is drafted, through the amendment process, at passage, and upon codification. This would be revolutionary.

• There are ongoing improvements on how video from committee hearings is recorded and made available to the public, with an emphasis on standardizing and making available meta data. (While not a lot of detail was offered, Carl Malamud, who has long advocated for broadcast quality video from the floor and committee hearings, probably has a lot to add on this issue.)

• There's also ongoing efforts with respect to how constituent communications are received by members of congress, and efforts to make it easier to hire capable vendors.

• Finally, there was a stated willingness to consider to what extent the House Rules need to be amended to allow technological modernization that will make the chamber more transparent.

Later on, Darrell Issa, who chairs the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, announced the launch of "Madison" -- a tool whereby the public can comment on legislation as it is being drafted. Here's a rather grainy photo. Rep. Issa explained the concept: "When a member introduces a bill, it should be interoperably commented on, and [those comments] should be part of the markup consideration. Under the Madison initiative, [interest] group's input will be noted and appreciated, and exposed to the world in real time." While similar in concept to PublicMarkup and Open Congress, the difference is that it would be managed and monitored by the office responsible for reviewing the legislation, giving the opportunity to track ideas (and influence) as it occurs. Indeed, after the conference ended, Rep. Issa's staff hosted a hackathon to help improve the tool so it can be unveiled for public use. Stay tuned.

I haven't even begun to speak about the break-out sessions, which I will briefly summarize. Participants broke into four working groups that focused on the following topics: legislative correspondence, legislative workflow and data, public relations and press relations, and casework and constituent services. We reconvened at the end of the conference to discuss our recommendations for improvements. It's too lengthy to go into here. But, on that topic, I would be remiss to not point to an earlier collaborative effort, the Open House Project, which in 2007 raised many of the same issues and outlined a series of recommendations. (And I can't resist plugging this list of ideas for improving THOMAS).

The outstanding question in my mind is: where do we go from here? Much of the conversation can continue on these open policy and technology listservs, at the hashtag #HackWeTrust, and on pages being set up by Facebook* (who sent many developers to participate in the conference). Even so, it would be great to harness this enthusiasm to hold additional events that bring together experts, staff, technologists, and advocates to address the important but complex questions of how to make the legislative branch open, transparent, and technology-friendly. Similarly, it may make sense to institutionalize this discussion as well, perhaps through working group(s), listservs, or other means.

• Updated to include the Facebook page. Also, check out this colloquy between Reps. Cantor and Hoyer that took place today and discussed yesterday's hackathon.

This Wednesday, the House of Representatives will host an unprecedented public meeting from 3:30-7:30 to discuss how the public can get better access to congressional information. While the event is called the "Congressional Facebook Hackathon," what will take place is much broader than the name suggests. Wednesday will present an opportunity for technologists and policy wonks to talk about and collaborate on improving how congressional information is made available to the public. It has important bipartisan hosts, Reps. Eric Cantor and Steny Hoyer, who deserve significant credit for coming together on this important transparency issue.

The event will start with short opening presentations by the House of Representatives on its open data initiatives and Facebook on its latest platform updates. Afterward, participants will break out into discussion groups, focusing on legislative data/workflow, constituent correspondence, casework, and press/ public relations. Of course, there will be sufficient flexibility for the conversation to follow the interests of the participants.

There have been several previous collaborative efforts by members of the transparency community to outline how the House of Representatives can be more open and accountable, of which an enduring touchstone is the Open House Project Report, issued in May 2007. It's recommendation remain relevant today:

• Legislation Database—publish legislative data in structured formats
• Preserving Congressional Information—protect congressional information through archiving and distribution
• Congressional Committees—recognize committees as a public resource by making committee information available online
• Congressional Research Service—share non-partisan research beyond Congress
• Member Web-Use Restrictions—permit members to take full advantage of internet resources
• Citizen Journalism Access—grant House access to non-traditional journalists
• The Office of the Clerk of the House—serve as a source for digital disclosure information
• The Congressional Record—maintain the veracity of a historical document
• Congressional Video—create open video access to House proceedings
• Coordinating Web Standards—commit to technology reform as an administrative priority

These issues are still outstanding. We have yet to see bulk access to THOMAS or public access to CRS reports, important legislative and ethics documents are still unavailable in digital format, many committee hearings still are not online, and so on. There has been some progress, however, including a written directive from the House leadership pledging to do more and an important Committee on House Administration hearing that hints at progress-to-come. But there is a need for more, which is being recognized by the event's hosts.

If you have not RSVP'd, there's still time. We hope that this will be the kick-off to a much broader discussion. If you want to get a head start, join in the conversation on our Open House Project listserv.

House Democrats have contributed nearly $40 million to the congressional campaign committee tasked with protecting the party's majority in the midterm elections in November, according to data obtained from TransparencyData.com.

The contributions from 166 members of the 253 members of the House Democratic Caucus account for 37 percent of the contributions made to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). These contributions could help to build a well-funded defensive line against the insurgent Republicans.

The DCCC has raised over $100 million this election cycle and has nearly $40 million in cash on hand, but has only spent $7 million so far on independent expenditures to protect their majority. According to a report by the Sunlight Foundation's Reporting Group, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has spent nearly double that of the DCCC so far this cycle.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer contributed the most of any member of the caucus sending $2.35 million from his campaign committee and political action committee (PAC) to the DCCC. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has sent the second most money to the DCCC with a total of $2.225 million. The third-ranking Democrat, Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, is also the third-ranking giver to the DCCC with contributions totaling $2.2 million.

One hundred and eight Democrats have contributed over $100,000 to the DCCC. The biggest givers include the party leadership and major committee chairmen including Reps. Henry Waxman ($800,000), George Miller ($765,000) and Barney Frank ($600,000).

Perhaps an admission of the treacherous electoral climate ninety-seven members have not given any money to the DCCC. Nearly all Republican House members have contributed to the NRCC.

Many of these members are freshmen or sophomores elected in the 2006 and 2008 Democratic waves and are now facing a tough path to reelection. These Democrats are relying on the contributions to the DCCC by their fellow caucus members.

Some of the non-contributors will be facing little competition in November yet still have not sent campaign cash to help their party. In fact, twenty Democrats listed as not yet contributing to the DCCC are currently in races rated as "Solid Democratic" by the Cook Political Report.

Reps. Zoe Lofgren, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Maxine Waters, Dan Lipinski, Carolyn McCarthy, Pete Stark, Luis Gutierrez and Corrine Brown are among those who are facing little to no opposition and have not contributed to their party's campaign committee as of the last filing period. Some of these members are sitting on cash on hand piles of at least half-a-million dollars.

The contributions to the DCCC and the lack of contributions by some members produce a dynamic that highlights some of the Democratic Party's internal ideological divisions. Many of the non-contributing members are Democrats from the moderate-to-conservative wing of the party. These are also the same members who are facing difficult reelections.

Those contributing to the party committee are more representative of the party's liberal wing including many members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. While fifty-three of eighty-two Progressive Caucus members contributed to the committee, only seventeen out of fifty-four members of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition did as well.

Over the past two years, Progressive Caucus members have voiced concerns about deals crafted to win the votes of Blue Dog Democrats and other moderate and conservative Democrats. The make-up of the caucus after November 2 could likely determine the party's ideological temperament heading into the 2012 presidential cycle.

Feature photo credit: Dominic Alves

And now to totally contradict my previous post stating why no one needs to talk about tickle-monster Eric Massa.

The House voted today 404-2 to recommend that the House Ethics Committee reopen their probe into Massa's misconduct and examine whether House leaders were aware of his misdeeds and whether they failed act quickly enough. This follows on the heels of reports that an aide in Speaker Pelosi's office was informed in October that Massa was living with aides, hired too many aides, cursed around staff and appeared to be going on dates with openly-gay male staffers from other congressional offices.

On first blush these don't exactly rise to the level of ethics investigation material -- congressmen have been known to live with aides in the past and if he wants to cheat on his wife with adult men, that's his prerogative. Either way, the Ethics Committee should look into whether there was any more information relayed to leadership prior to the reported receipt of complaints about harassment in February and whether they responded properly or not.

Already, this case is being compared to the 2006 Mark Foley scandal. I'm not really sure that it rises to that level for a number of reasons. That being said, let's take a look at what made the Foley scandal toxic for the congressional leadership who covered it up.

1) Members of Congress were aware as early as 1995 that Foley was interested in teenage male pages. Foley was elected in 1994. A male page who served in 1995 stated later, "Almost the first day I got there I was warned. It was no secret that Foley had a special interest in male pages." In 2000, then-Rep. Jim Kolbe and Clerk of the House Jeff Trandahl were informed of complaints of inappropriate e-mails from Foley to teenage male pages. In 2002 or 2003, Foley appeared in the page dormitory after-hours and was visibly drunk. This information was conveyed to Trandahl who then informed Foley's chief of staff Kirk Fordham and Fordham subsequently informed Speaker Dennis Hastert's chief of staff Scott Palmer that Foley exhibited inappropriate behavior around pages, but did not tell him about the drunken dorm incident. Trandahl stated that Hastert's office was informed of Foley's behavior in 2003 and was given regular updates about his conduct.

2) In the specific incident that led to Foley's removal from the House, congressmen were made aware of the lascivious e-mails in early-2005 (the story broke in September of 2006). Hastert's office was made aware in the fall of 2005 and Hastert was specifically informed in early-2006. Other congressional leaders, Majority Leader John Boehner and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds, were informed of the emails and IM conversations in the spring of 2006. Boehner and Reynolds stated that they both told Hastert about the allegations.

3) Foley was hitting on teenage pages and engaging in sexual relationships with ex-pages. This is a far-cry from going on dates with adult congressional staffers. Parents entrust their children to Congress when they are serving as pages and expect that members of Congress aren't going to be making sexual advances on them -- or that, if such a case were to arise that congressional leaders would do something about it. Also, did I mention that Foley was hitting on teenagers, not adults.

I can't really see the Massa issue rising to this level of extreme malfeasance by leadership. It appears to have come as somewhat of a surprise to people in Washington. This is probably because the guy was only a congressman for about 14 months. The complaints that were made with Pelosi's office, if the story is accurate, rise to the level of talking to Massa's staff, but certainly not to an Ethics Committee investigation. The complaints received by Hoyer's office were rather more serious and his office referred the matter to the Ethics Committee almost immediately. If this is the full story, it certainly doesn't rise to the level of the actual cover-up of Foley's repulsive behavior.

Since the House already voted to send the issue back to the Ethics Committee, we'll have to wait and see if everyone's story is accurate.

Seven key Democrats seen as potential vote-flippers on the health care reform bill are heavily reliant on campaign funds from party leadership and online progressive activists.

According to campaign finance data at the Center for Responsive Politics, all seven Democrats--Reps. Jason Altmire, Suzanne Kosmas, Frank Kratovil, Scott Murphy, Glenn Nye, Michael McMahon and Betsy Markey--list Leadership PACs (political action committees) in the top three career industry donors. Three of the seven members are also heavily reliant on money from Democratic campaign committees or outside progressive fundraising through the web site Actblue.

The seven Democrats were identified in an Associated Press survey of members who previously voted "No" on the House health care reform bill. With pressure mounting to pass the Senate's health care reform bill and the resignation of key members along with the death of Rep. John Murtha, Speaker Nancy Pelosi must round-up lawmakers like these seven to vote "Yes" after a previous "No" vote.

The upper Democratic leadership is particularly active in contributing to these lawmakers. Five of the seven lawmakers--Kosmas, Kratovil, Murphy, Nye and Markey--count the PACs of Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Majority Whip James Clyburn in their top twenty career individual donors. Rep. McMahon counts two of the three Democratic leadership PACs (Hoyer and Clyburn) in his top twenty.

All of these seven lawmakers are either freshmen or, in Rep. Altmire's case, a sophomore. Freshmen and sophomore lawmakers are often in greater danger of losing their next election and, therefore, more reliant on party and leadership funds to finance their victories. This puts them in a situation where the leadership has significantly more sway over their floor votes than other members.

Similarly, outside activists can push a lawmaker towards a certain vote by contributing or withholding funds. Rep. Scott Murphy, who won a special election in New York to replace appointed-Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, is the top recipient among the seven lawmakers of money from ActBlue, the online progressive clearinghouse for campaign contributions. Murphy received $315,807 in individual contributions through the ActBlue site making ActBlue his number one career individual donor. Rep. Betsy Markey also received a significant amount of campaign money through ActBlue with $124,090 coming in from the site.

See below for totals:

Lawmaker	Industry	Amount	Rank
Jason Altmire	Leadership PACs	$220,662.00	3rd
Suzanne Kosmas	Leadership PACs	$201,978.00	2nd
Frank Kratovil	Leadership PACs	$182,115.00	3rd
Betsy Markey	Democratic/Liberal	$263,329.00	1st
	Leadership PACs	$229,248.00	3rd
Michael McMahon	Leadership PACs	$168,300.00	2nd
	Candidate Committees	$122,500.00	3rd
Scott Murphy	Democratic/Liberal	$383,017.00	1st
	Leadership PACs	$203,400.00	3rd
Glenn Nye	Leadership PACs	$190,791.00	2nd

So, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer announced that they were going to place the final health care bill online for 72 hours prior to consideration yesterday. Where did they decide to do this? Twitter. And no one raises a hackle at all. It's just accepted that this is a valid announcement of an important transparency policy. What better way to demonstrate how far Congress has come in terms of social media use and transparency than to have the Speaker of the House announce a transparency policy on a widely-used social media site.

It wasn't too long ago that lawmakers weren't even allowed to officially use Twitter, let alone any social media site, to communicate with everyone else. The Sunlight Foundation was at the forefront of changing that policy starting in 2007 and culminating in rules changes in 2008. John Wonderlich summed this all up way back when:

In May of 2007, the Sunlight Foundation released the Open House Project report, which included an entire chapter on the issue of Franking Reform.  That chapter, prepared by David All and Paul Blumental, has guided our advocacy and discussions of web use restrictions since then.

Those discussions simmered until earlier this summer, when tensions between Members of the Franking Commission  briefly escalated (the part of the Committee on House Administration that handles Web restrictions).  This summer’s discussion caught some media attention, and unsettled some web-savvy Representatives, and ultimately engaged both parties’ leaders in the House.

The Sunlight Foundation capitalized on the chaos, creating the first twitter-based petition in the site letourcongresstweet.org, which amassed twitter-based signatures, and displayed vigorous support for updated rules from online communities across the political spectrum.

While House officials maneuvered publicly, the Senate passed similar reforms with a bit less fanfare.  As recently as last week, agreement looked unlikely from the House committee, with Roll Call reporting that an attempt at negotiations ended in “an emotionally charged hearing and a breakdown in negotiations.”

That’s why we were suprised and delighted to get word from the Committee on House Administration that a new agreement had been reached.  This measure wasn’t just a slight rewrite, however.  The new guidelines represent an enormous change, one which has new media staff from both parties glowing.

And now we just take for granted that serious policies are announced over Twitter. Personally, I think that is awesome.

Last week, Jake wrote that "it is utterly imperative that the final version of the bill be online for the public to view for at least 72 hours." The House Majority just announced that they will do just that (via #HealthReformNow):

Pelosi and Hoyer say final health reform bill will be online for 72 hours before House vote so Members and Americans can review #hcr

This is a great development and another big win for those who have called for the bill to be available to the public for 72 hours throughout this whole process. The Sunlight Foundation has called for the health care bill to be available to the public for 72 hours at each point that versions have come to the floor. In each of these instances the majority has acquiesced and posted each version, from the House bill to the Senate bill, for at least 72 hours prior to consideration. Those of you who have signed the Read the Bill petition and put the pressure on Congress to be this transparent have been vital in ensuring that we have access to this major bill before lawmakers consider, debate and vote on it.

Earlier this week, Ellen explained the importance of the 72 hour requirement:

Think of posting something on line for 3 days as a ‘safety valve’ – a final chance for citizens, media, lawmakers and lobbyists alike to look at the whole package giving everyone one last opportunity to raise questions and concerns about the bill. If readers are in an advocacy mode they have time to  mobilize others in support or opposition, and/or take action in whatever form they see fit.

There is no measure more important to debate in the open than health care, and this is a moment when we all need to be champions for public, online disclosure and engage with our government. With 72 hours, the buck can actually stop with citizens the way our Founders intended. We know that Congress do it because congressional leadership has already done so at other critical points in this debate.

Of course, we still need to make sure that this promise is kept and that won't be done until the bill has been online for 72 hours and then brought to the floor. Let's keep it up.

There's a bit of irony in this story.

House Republican leaders are calling for Democrats to post the stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, online immediately. In a letter sent to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, the GOP leaders write that having the bill online would allow citizens to study its contents before Congress agrees to it and the president signs it into law. The GOP leadership is correct to, on behalf of the American people, claim the right “to see each provision of this legislation and evaluate the merit of each dollar of government spending their children and grandchildren are being required to fund."

Too bad they haven't always been for such transparency.

Since inception, Sunlight has been calling for exactly this sort of openness. We think all legislation should be posted on line for 72 hours before debate. We're hoping now that alot of Republicans will sign onto this measure when it's reintroduced in this Congress.

Earlier today, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer stated that, prior to consideration, the economic stimulus bill would be made available online for 4 days. This is clearly a lesson learned from the outrage that surrounded the cramming-down-the-throat strategy for the TARP bailout bill. Here's Hoyer (the text was received from my colleague John Wonderlich via the Open House Project Google Group):

[I]t is my hope that the committee markups will be completed tonight. maybe early this morning. as you know the appropriations committee marked up yesterday. had a full markup. adopted six republican amendments and a number of democratic amendments. i don't know whether -- i don't know what the amendment status is in energy and commerce or ways and means, but i expect all those markups to be completed either late tonight. i hope, it is my hope that once those markups are complete that by tomorrow night we will post the results on the web and that they will be available not 48 hours, but either tonight or saturday -- friday night or saturday, so that we'll have four days to review those items. i want to reiterate my hope and my expectation to state it even more strongly that you and the minority members, country, majority members will have 48 hours to review the product that is reported out of the committee after their markups. i yield back.

This is a great step for Congress, however they should mandate that bills are available online for at least 72 hours prior to consideration.

President Obama has promised to post all non-emergency legislation on WhiteHouse.gov for five days for the public to comment. Unfortunately, this would occur after the bill is unable to be modified, thus the comments could only lead the President to sign or veto the bill. Congress should allow for each bill to be placed online for 72 hours so that the public can have a voice, and lawmakers can read the bills. Hoyer is pointing in the right direction and hopefully this is one that they will continue to follow.